Klinsmann eyes Holden return

I spent part of my afternoon talking about soccer with a person I respect tremendously in U.S. Soccer’s communications department.

I already began lobbying to have U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann visit the Houston Chronicle sports department and have an intimate lunch with me and a few top Chronicle sports department folks.

With College Station’s Brek Shea, former Dynamo star Geoff Cameron and Dynamo captain Brad Davis making strong cases with the U.S. national team, we realize how popular the U.S. national team is with a large segment of our community.

It’s also nice to know that Klinsmann is keeping a close eye on former Dynamo star Stuart Holden, who was raised in Houston and developed by the Texans club that also developed Shea.

Holden, a veteran of the 2010 World Cup squad, hasn’t appeared with the national team since Oct. 12, 2010, because of a horrific knee injury he suffered playing for the English Premier League’s Bolton Wanderers against Manchester United.

“We’ve been in touch with Stuart throughout this whole injury period,” Klinsmann said. “The last couple of months have given us a lot of positive signals. I spoke to his coach at Bolton, and spoke to his coach at Sheffield Wednesday where he played some very important minutes and games while on loan. He’s on his way back. That being said, we want to have him back in our picture. We are going to bring him for the May-June camp, and also for the Gold Cup.”

The Gold Cup may be a great opportunity for Holden to return.

“We have the backing from his club that we can play him through the summer,” Klinsmann said. “He knows there won’t be big vacation time, and he said ‘I don’t want vacation anymore. I had one and a half years off!’ So that’s exciting news for us, having him back in the group and seeing him and evaluating where he’s at, and helping him become the old Stuart Holden, and even better because he’s still so young.”